Liam Buckley prepared for 'must-win' game against Derry City

The Sligo Rovers manager is preparing for a 'must-win' clash with the Candy Stripes who are desperately in need of three points after a 'devastating' stoppage time defeat to Bohemians at Dalymount Park on Friday night.

Both teams are without a win in their last three league outings but Sligo go into the game three points better off than their North West counterparts.

The Candy Stripes do have a game in hand over Sligo and will see tomorrow's match as a real opportunity to climb the table with six games to go in the campaign.

A win would take Declan Devine's troops to within a point of Dundalk who occupy fourth but Buckley is determined to register a second league win of the season against Derry in his team's penultimate home game.

"We’ve got five matches to try to win, we’re looking at every game as must-win because of what it can do," said Buckley. "You see St Pat’s moving up with one win, how close Derry were to joining them last Friday.

“They would have felt aggrieved with a draw against Bohs so to lose the game must have been tough to take. They were the better side. Both teams will see this game as a chance to be better and get the points.

“We got to keep focused, in this context it doesn’t matter how quick the games get thrown at us. We’ve got five games to get the points we need to take us up the table and we’ll give it our all on Tuesday to do so.”

That 1-0 loss to Waterford was hard to take for Buckley's troops and the Bit O'Red boss admits it was frustrating as his team didn't create enough.

“It was a fantastic goal out of nothing that won the game, a brilliant strike and they didn’t trouble us much thereafter. It was their only real chance.

"We huffed and puffed, we made some openings, we could have produced more. You need a bit of luck and it just didn’t fall for us. I thought we could have gotten the draw but it didn’t happen for us. It was frustrating, but we’re still in there. I said to the players that we have no time or reason to look back on that game and feel sorry for ourselves."